Fabio Maldonado was looking to rebound against Igor Pokrajac at UFC on Fuel TV 3 on Tuesday night in Fairfax, Va., but it didn’t quite work out that way.

The two UFC light heavyweight hopefuls went toe-to-toe and fist-for-fist for the duration of their three-round fight, but Maldonado couldn’t do enough in the judges’ eyes to earn the nod.

Pokrajac took Maldonado down early in the fight, dominating him on the mat for the better part of the first round, but Maldonado wouldn’t cash it in.

He fought his way out and once back on his feet, went to work with his patented body shots, trying to soften Pokrajac up for the knockout punch later in the fight. While his strategy was implemented about as well as it could have been, there was one factor that he couldn’t overcome… Pokrajac’s chin.

Pokrajac took everything that Maldonado dished out and would not go down. He also fired back with a varied striking arsenal of his own, combining some powerful punch combinations with a continuous assault of knees.

Amazingly, Pokrajac, no matter what he unleashed, couldn’t put Maldonado down either. He did do enough in the fight, however, to earn a unanimous nod from the judges.

Pokrajac is now on a three-fight streak, while Maldonado has back-to-back defeats staring him in the face for the first in more than 10 years.